Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Pentagon pick, faces Senate confirmation hearing

Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News host tapped by United States President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Pentagon, has come under fire at his Senate confirmation hearing.

On Tuesday, Hegseth was the first high-profile Trump nominee to face confirmation proceedings, and senators pressed the would-be secretary of defence on his past statements about diversity in the military, as well as allegations of sexual assault and excessive drinking.

“Mr Hegseth, I do not believe that you are qualified to meet the overwhelming demands of this job,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed, the committee’s ranking member, said in prepared remarks.

“The challenge of the Secretary of Defense is to remove partisan politics from the military. You propose to inject it. This would be an insult to the men and women who have sworn to uphold their own apolitical duty to the Constitution.”

Hegseth’s service in the army national guard is widely viewed as an asset for the job, and he has the support of Trump and the Republican Party.But the 44-year-old also has been criticised for allegations of sexual assault that he strongly denies, drinking during previous employment roles, and derisive views about women in military combat roles, minorities and “woke” generals.

“ To denigrate LGBTQ service members is a mistake,” Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, told Hegseth at one point. “If you are a sharp shooter, you’re as lethal regardless of what your gender identity is, regardless of who you love.”

Gillibrand also read aloud some of Hegseth’s quotes about women in the military. “You will have to change how you see women to do this job well, and I don’t know if you are capable of that,” she said.

Hegseth is among the most endangered of Trump’s cabinet nominees, but Republicans are determined to turn him into a cause celebre for the president-elect’s governing approach. Trump is to be inaugurated on Monday.

“He will be ripped. He will be demeaned. He will be talked about,” Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville said of Hegseth at an event supporting the nominee before the hearing. “But we’re going to get him across the finish line.”

Hegseth himself sought to present himself as politically neutral, walking back some of his previous controversial statements.

“We are not Republicans. We are not Democrats. We are American warriors. Our standards will be high and they will be equal, not equitable. That’s a very different word,” he told senators on Tuesday, promising to be a “change agent” in the department.

He also tried to emphasise his bipartisan credentials in an exchange with Senator Gillibrand.

“ Senator, I volunteered to deploy to Afghanistan under Democrat President Barack Obama. I also volunteered to guard the inauguration of Joe Biden but was denied the opportunity to serve because I was identified as an extremist by my own unit for a Christian tattoo,” he explained.

Hegseth nevertheless returned to several conservative “culture war” talking points during the hearing, including by denouncing “woke” efforts to assure healthcare for transgender troops.

Soldiers, he argued, “want to focus on lethality and war-fighting and get all the woke, political prerogative, politically correct, social-justice political stuff out of the military”.

Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of the Armed Services Committee, described Hegseth as “a guy with a track record of being so drunk at work events that he needed to be carried out on multiple occasions”.

“Can we really count on calling Hegseth at 2AM to make life and death national security decisions? Nope,” she said on the social media platform X.

Hegseth can afford only three Republican rejections and still be confirmed, should every Democrat and independent vote against him.

During the hearing, Hegseth repeatedly faced scrutiny for his comments that women should “straight up” not be in combat roles in the military, a view he has softened after recent meetings with senators.

He also defended the military itself, calling it “one of the least racist institutions in our country” despite concerns about discrimination.